Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared that the state's collective-bargaining law could take effect, overruling a lower court judge who had put the law on hold.
The article states:
"The decision limits Wisconsin's public employees to bargaining over their wages. Raises will be limited to the inflation rate unless voters approve larger increases. The law also requires public employees to contribute 5.8% of their salaries to their pensions and pay at least 12.6% of their health-care premiums."
This is the platform Governor Walker ran on and that the legislature passed.
The article further reports:
"Next month, nine state senators--six Republicans and three Democrats--will face recall elections sparked by public rancor over the collective-bargaining debate. The Senate currently has 19 Republicans and 14 Democrats.
""Gov. Walker and the legislative Republicans' insistence on union-busting and taking away workers' rights resulted in months of legal wrangling, unprecedented political divisiveness and millions of dollars of lost budget savings," Senate Democratic Leader Mark Miller said."
The battle to bring fiscal sanity into state budgets and state worker's benefits will probably continue in Wisconsin and elsewhere. I don't believe anyone wants to take away the benefits of federal or state workers--I do believe that the goal here is to bring federal and state workers' benefits in line with benefits in the private sector. Hopefully, Wisconsin (and other states) will be successful in this effort.
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